- 19 - The CPT would also like to receive confirmation that the Piraeus centre has been definitively closed, as well as details on the capacity and layout of any facility replacing it. Further, it would like to be informed of the measures being taken to ensure that police stations are no longer used to hold persons for prolonged periods. 4. Regime 39. The CPT has been reiterating the need to develop a purposeful regime for irregular migrants held in detention since its report on the 1997 visit21. However, nearly six years after the adoption of the 2005 Aliens Act, there is still no specific regulation in place detailing the minimum operating standards for special facilities for irregular migrants as required by Article 8122. Consequently, these facilities continue to be run like large police stations, and detainees are not offered any activities. Instead, they are left to languish, with detainees spending their time either sleeping or in a state of idleness; they are not even given access to reading material, board games, radio or television. Further, in many of the facilities described above, the detention areas are so packed with people that they cannot even move around the room in which they are held. Moreover, they are not offered access to outdoor exercise. More than ever there is an urgent necessity to adopt standards guaranteeing a diversified regime, with activities and recreation. In addition, norms with respect to the provision of appropriate medical and social care should be included in the operating standards, as well as issues related to the maintenance of order and discipline. Similar operating standards should be introduced for the police holding facilities. The CPT calls upon the Greek authorities to take the necessary steps to draw up and implement, as soon as possible, operating standards for both the special facilities for irregular migrants and police holding facilities, guaranteeing, inter alia, a regime offering activities and recreation. 5. Health care 40. As regards access to medical care, the CPT’s delegation found that access is still not effective in practice. In general, the system in police detention facilities remains that for detained persons to see a doctor or nurse, they must make a request to the police officers responsible for their custody whose task it is to inquire whether a vehicle and staff are available to transport the person concerned to hospital. In many places, detained persons continued to claim that staff filtered requests for a consultation by an external doctor. Only the centre at Filakio had a daily medical presence. The non-governmental organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières, had started to provide a medical service to the Soufli and Tychero police and border guard stations since early December 2010. However, in all the other police detention facilities in which persons were being detained for up to six months, there was no medical presence. 21 22 See CPT/Inf (2001) 18, Part I, paragraph 73. See CPT/ Inf (2009) 20, paragraph 45.